Destiny’s Betrayal
by roguehobbit
Summary: Rogue still has emotional damage concerning Irene, the women who had raised her for eleven years before Mystique collected her. One-shot about Rogue dealing with her feelings. Set on the Christmas Eve after the final episode.


Destiny's Betrayal

Rating: PG

Category: General/Angst

Summery: Rogue still has emotional damage concerning Irene, the women who had raised her for eleven years before Mystique collected her. One-shot about Rogue dealing with her feelings. Set on the Christmas Eve after the final episode.

Special thanks to Auramistealia for beta reading this.

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Christmas Eve. A joyous time, a time to be with family, a time to prepare for tomorrow's celebration, a time to relax from the turmoil of everyday life.

Rogue was sitting in front of the Christmas tree alone, her legs hugged to her chest, thinking.

It was very quiet. Except for Dr. McCoy and the Professor, she was the only living being in the mansion.

All the New Recruits had managed to get home or to friends houses for the holidays. Even Roberto and Amara had made it back to Brazil. Jean had taken Scott with her; now that they were officially "together" she had wanted him to meet her parents.

Ororo had left yesterday to be with her sister's family. Rogue had heard that Evan would be home for Christmas, taking a day off from living in the sewers. Kitty had also gone home yesterday, and wasn't expected back until a few days after New Years.

Kurt had flown to Germany. He had asked Rogue to come with him, since she was his "sister", and he wanted to be with all of his family. A sweet gesture that Rogue had been prepared to politely decline. Kurt had tried to convince her to come, but she refused to budge, and he gave up. He had left four days ago.

Rogue knew that if she had agreed to come, it would have been uncomfortable to everyone involved, including her. Going to a foreign country, were everyone spoke a different language, and having to explain to Kurt's relatives how she was related would have been embarrassing. Rogue also did not want to intrude on the Wagner's holiday traditions, and family time. They only got to see Kurt on Christmas and in the summer, they shouldn't have to share him with her.

Family. Rogue had once had a family. Well, a surrogate mother anyway. Not Mystique, even though she had taken care of Rogue in her early years. Irene. Irene was the one Rogue had grown up with, the one that had treated her like she was her daughter, who had loved her. Or, at that time, Rogue had thought she had. Now it looked like Irene had just been there to keep Rogue alive, to preserve her until she had developed her mutant powers. Then she had been handed over to Mystique.

Rogue dug her nails into her knees, digging right through the material of her pants.

It was funny how she had finally gotten over what Mystique had done to her. True, she had pushed her over a cliff before she was able to move on, but now she didn't feel so hurt when she thought about the many things the blue shape shifter had done to her and to Kurt, how she had tricked her with lies about the X-Men and with Risty.

She hadn't forgiven Mystique, not by a long shot, but she was over it now. Not so with Irene. The blind women had been the only mother that she could remember. The betrayal of the only person she had trusted completely had left its mark on Rogue.

That day Rogue had pushed Mystique's helpless form through the gazebo fence and over the cliff, Rogue hadn't just been pushing the X-Men's enemy. She had been trying to rid herself of her past, of the two people who had caused her the most agony, and of all the pain she felt.

But the pain had not gone away when the stone Mystique had crashed onto the rocks below. Nor had Irene.

A loud noise made Rogue jump. Shaken out of her dark thoughts, she did not recognize what could have made the noise until it happened again. Someone was knocking on the mansion's front door.

After wiping her moist eyes with the palms of her hands, Rogue looked at the large ornamental clock over the fireplace. 11: 40.

_Who would be out this late on Christmas Eve?_ Rogue thought to herself as she slid on her black leather gloves. They were new ones, Kitty had bought them for her. The only difference between her old pair and the new pair was that these felt stiffer, having not been broken in. But she had worn them to make Kitty happy. That, and the valley girl had hidden the old ones.

The knocking had stopped by the time Rogue got to her feet. She sprinted over to the door, and looked out the peak hole. No one was there.

A number of Goosebumps horror stories came to her mind, but she opened the door anyway, stepping onto the stone porch. It was snowing hard, and if anyone was walking away, she couldn't see them.

Her foot nudged a envelope that had been left laying squarely in front of the door. Picking it up, Rogue noticed that only one thing was written on the plain white envelope. "Marie."

Rogue quickly stepped back into the mansion and closed the door. Then she locked it and leaned against it, staring numbly at the single name.

She recognized that hand writing. And only a select few called her Marie.

Rogue threw the letter from her like it was burning. Being only a light envelope and one piece of paper inside, it only drifted a few feet away and landed gracefully on the tiled floor. Rogue eyed it warily, like it was some animal that might attack at any moment.

"Rogue?"

Rogue nearly jumped out of her skin. Pivoting to her right she saw Dr. McCoy standing in front of the kitchen doorway, holding a mug of what smelled like hot coco.

"Oh, hey, Dr. McCoy, ya nearly gave meh a heart attack," she said, her heart rate slowing down.

"Sorry. What are you doing up? Shouldn't you be asleep dreaming of what Santa will bring you?"

"Ha ha. Ah stopped believing in Santa when Ah was seven, Dr. McCoy." She added to herself, _When Irene told meh that Santa Claus was really some saint way back when...Stop thinking about Irene!_

"Hm. Why are you up though?" pursued the blue furry man, looking at her questioningly.

"Ah was...Ah couldn't sleep. Ah thought Ah'd come down stairs and sit by the tree, and...think."

"Oh." Hank said, glancing at the letter on the floor. "Well, there's still some hot cocoa if you want any."

_Bless you Dr. McCoy, bless you._ Apparently he was not going to comment about the envelope laying on the floor. "No thank you, Ah'll just head on up back to mah room."

"Alright, good night. Have pleasant dreams."

"Visions of sugah plums dancing?" Rogue asked, smiling slightly.

Hank smiled as he headed towards his room. "Something like that."

After he left, Rogue gingerly picked up the letter. She had a feeling that if she opened the letter, she would be opening up something from the past.

Something she wanted to stay behind her.

If she never opened the letter, it would plague her for the rest of her life. She would always be wondering what was in it.....

Rogue clenched the letter in her fist and started up the stairs to the room she shared with Kitty. But Kitty was gone, and she would have actual privacy. Not that she minded Kitty...but sometimes you needed your space.

Quietly passing the many rooms on the way to her bedroom, Rogue marveled at how silent everything was. _Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse..._

Not that there were mice in the mansion. The Professor would never allow that.

Rogue reached her room and opened the door. Flicking on the light switch she noticed how empty it looked. Kitty had packed pretty much everything but the bed frame. Rogue suspected that in the whirl wind packing Kitty had done, a few of Rogue's cloths probably made it into her suitcase.

She closed the door and walked around the half empty room, wondering what she could do with all the space. Whatever she put up Kitty would have her take down when she got back though.

Finally deciding not to paint the room a less cheerful color before Kitty's return, she sat down on her bed and unclenched her hand. Yup, the letter was still there. It wasn't some nightmare. It was real and had to be dealt with.

_Ya can still rip it to shreds, it's not to late._ A voice inside her head said.

Ignoring the voice, Rogue slipped off her glove that was on her right hand and slid her index finger's nail underneath the flap of the envelope.

_You're goin' ta regret this._

Rogue paused._ Yeah, Ah am. But here goes nothing_

Running her fingernail all the way along the flap, she unglued the sealing on the envelope. Holding it upside down she let a thin piece of lined notebook paper fall onto the dark bedspread.

Putting the envelope aside, she picked up the paper. It read: Marie, please come home. I need your help. Hurry. Love, Irene.

Rogue saw red. How dare this women ask her help! What the hell did she think!? That Rogue would just come running home when called? That she would forget all that Irene had done to her? That she would actually want to help her!? And what she had written, "Love, Irene." Love! Irene had never loved her! Irene had used her for Mystique, Irene had made her think that she had a home, that she had a family...Irene had......

Taken care of her when she was sick. Read her stories at bedtime. Had comforted her when she was crying. Had let her eat two cookies between lunch and dinner instead of one.

All the good things Irene had ever done for her came flooding back. And they hurt more then the bad memories. Because they showed that Irene was not absolute evil, as Rogue had wanted to think she was. She had sheltered, fed, clothed, maybe even loved Rogue for eleven years. And now that women needed her help.

Rogue curled into a ball on her bed and cried silently, the letter clasped in her hands. She would go home to Irene. And once she had helped her, that would be it. She would have closure. Her past would be behind her.

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I wrote this last year around 1:00 in the morning on Christmas Day. Don't know why all my ideas occur that late (or that early, however you look at it). I had planned that if I wrote out more chapters for it before _this_ Christmas I would make it a rather long story, but since I've only written two more since then I've decided to keep it a one shot, and scrap those chapters.

I'll leave it to you to think up the rest of the story.

Merry Christmas. :)


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